cannellini bean soup

Sometimes I like spending all day in the kitchen. Sometimes a plan doesn’t work out the way you think it will.

I got my CSA box full of greens, and assumed most of them would work well in a cannellini bean soup. I was wrong. I didn’t know what most of the greens were, and as it turned out, most were too bitter and over powered the flavors in the soup. So I just fished out most of the greens and ended up with delicious soup anyway, a little less green than originally planned.

You can make this with canned beans and chicken or vegetable broth from a box, or water. This soup would probably take a whopping 20 minutes to cook. But I really wanted freshly cooked beans, and happened to have bones from a roasted chicken in the freezer, so mine took a bit more time.

Cannellini bean soup

1 pound dried cannellini beans

1/4 cup olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 shallot, minced

Red pepper flakes

Fresh oregano, minced

2 leeks, halved, 1/2″ thick slice (use white part only)

3 celery stalks, sliced

4 carrots, diced

28 ounce can whole san marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand

Rind of parmigianno-reggiano

Chicken stock, or vegetable stock, or water

Fresh greens of your choice (I’ll stick with spinach next time)

Salt and pepper to taste

Soak beans overnight, covered. The next day, rinse and drain beans. Add enough water to cover beans by 1″ in a crockpot, and cook on the low setting until just tender. This took about 4 hours for me, but it will depend on how fresh your beans are.

I made my chicken stock by covering the chicken carcass with water. Add a quartered onion (skin on), a couple of carrots, halved, pepper corns, bay leaf, and carrot tops or Italian parsley. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer. I usually use my crock pot.